


Old Wounds

by LilacNoctua



Series: Worthwhile [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background shikatema, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Lee's Dojo, Lee's hands, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Language, Natural Disasters, Overprotective Temari, Romance, Scars, Sparring, Wilderness Survival, background kakagai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacNoctua/pseuds/LilacNoctua
Summary: Sai’s bird swooped at an impossible angle, wings beating furiously as it tried to catch them. Lee pushed himself away from the wall, flinging them both into empty air and stretched out his free hand. Inky feathers brushed his fingertips and slipped away.They were falling, plummeting down towards the dark, churning surface of the torrent. Gaara squeezed his eyes shut and used the last of his chakra and the sand that had formed the gourd to create a protective shell around himself and Lee. It was a small, fragile thing, but it held together as they crashed down into the swollen river, supporting their weight and bobbing on the surface as the great wave caused by the falling wall swept them downriver at a sickening speed. Tangled with Lee inside the shell, Gaara felt the last reserves of his energy draining away, there was nothing more he could do.With the threat of conflict with another shinobi village looming on the horizon, and the pain of their past still casting a shadow over them, Lee and Gaara have only each other to rely on when everything falls apart.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Series: Worthwhile [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729480
Comments: 108
Kudos: 147





	1. Put At Ease

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 6 of the [Worthwhile series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729480/). It should mostly make sense if read on its own, though there are several references to events from earlier stories, particularly [_By Your Side_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24701554/chapters/59701078/).

One of the essential skills of a ninja, right alongside chakra control and ninjutsu, is the ability to sleep lightly, to remain aware of one's surroundings even while sleeping and awaken at the slightest sound or movement. This, Gaara thought as he stood waiting for the kettle to reach a boil, was another thing that made Lee unique among shinobi. Gaara himself was still mastering the art of sleeping. He had spent the majority of his life unable to sleep and as a result, still had difficulty falling asleep or waking up when he was supposed to. But Lee’s sleeping habits were beyond strange for a chunin. Gaara had snuck into Lee’s apartment nearly an hour ago and had busied himself making breakfast in the tiny kitchenette. Lee was still snoring loudly, lying on his back, limbs splayed out over the edges of a bed so small that Gaara suspected it had been meant for a child. Trusting, peaceful, careless; Gaara had never seen another shinobi sleep like this.

“Lee!” He called over his shoulder, pouring hot water into Lee’s chipped teapot.

“I did not ask for mild curry,” Lee snorted derisively in his sleep.

“LEE!” Gaara called louder. 

“Hmm?” Lee’s eyes opened and blinked at Gaara. He smiled sleepily. “Hi, beautiful. Have you seen the hot sauce?”

“I ate it all,” Gaara deadpanned.

Lee shot out of bed and grabbed Gaara by the shoulders. “How could you?!”

Gaara laughed softly and flicked Lee between the eyebrows. Lee blinked. Blinked again. He reached up to touch the sore spot on his forehead, squinted at Gaara and then looked around the room.

“Am I awake?” he mumbled.

“Yes, finally.”

“But, you are here,” Lee protested.

“Am I usually here when you dream?” Gaara wondered.

“Always,” Lee told him, still looking confused.

“Well, today I’m here for real,” Gaara explained. “Eat your breakfast. It’s getting cold.”

He steered Lee into a chair and set a plate in front of him.

“What is happening?” Lee muttered, then bolted upright. “Are you okay? Did you run away again?”

“No, nothing like that,” Gaara assured him. “I just wanted to surprise you, so I didn’t tell you I was coming.”

“Oh!” Lee exclaimed. “I do like surprises!”

“Then here’s another one,” Gaara said, smiling. “I’ll be here for a few days at least.”

Lee jumped up from the table with a little cry of happiness, grabbed Gaara and kissed him. Gaara only just managed not to topple over backwards into the kitchen counter as he flung his arms around Lee’s neck, laughed against his mouth and kissed him back. It still thrilled him to be able to be this close to Lee, to be able to kiss and touch him just because he wanted to, to stare at him shamelessly instead of sneaking glances and finding excuses to hold his hand.

“Eat your breakfast,” Gaara reminded him breathlessly, when Lee pulled away.

“Why are you here though?” Lee wondered, as they settled at opposite sides of the table.

“That’s a bit less pleasant,” Gaara sighed. “You remember the Grass ninja spies that were caught and killed here last week?”

Lee nodded vigorously, eyes wide.

“Well, we had a similar thing happen in Suna,” Gaara explained. “Tsunade and I think they were scouts meant to test our defenses. We suspect their leader is planning some sort of larger attack. But he’s sent us envoys and he’s furious. He claims we had no right to kill those shinobi, and is demanding that we return their bodies immediately. So that’s why I’m here. Tsunade and I are going to meet under the pretense of negotiation. We’re hoping to gather enough intel to keep this situation from escalating any further.”

“That sounds stressful,” Lee observed.

Gaara nodded again and bumped his knee against Lee’s under the table. “Good thing I’ve got you around to make me feel better after the meetings everyday.”

“Yes! You do!” Lee cried, brightening immediately. “It has been so long since our date, do you want me to plan another one?”

“I probably won’t have time for anything so formal,” Gaara told him. “But I’m interested to see what you come up with without all your friends weighing in on it.”

“I have some ideas,” Lee declared. He deflated slightly. “I wish sometimes I could see you, you know, just to see you.”

“Me too,” Gaara whispered. 

Months had passed since their official first date and they had been able to see each other every few weeks, but usually only for a handful of moments. Lee would dash into the Kazekage’s tower on his way home from a mission, long enough to leave Gaara with a few whispered words of affection and a kiss, before speeding back to his team waiting by the gate. Gaara would purposely plan the routes for his diplomatic travels to pass as close to Konoha as possible. They would meet at the gates, in forest glades, on hilltops and river banks, the time and location always carefully prearranged by messenger hawk. The way Gaara saw it, a few stolen kisses were better than nothing, but he was always left feeling that it was never enough. Now, with several days to spend near Lee, he was determined not to waste a second of it. He only regretted that their time together would need to be snatched from the jaws of very serious official business.

“What is your schedule for today then?” Lee asked.

Gaara turned to glance at the clock above the kitchen sink. “I’ll have to return to Lady Tsunade’s office soon. Then we’re going to meet the leader of Kusagakure and his retinue at their camp outside of the village. We’ve got a couple of jonin from both villages acting as guards, and Naruto’s team will be providing back up cover for us today.”

“Naruto is going to be expected to hide and stay quiet unless he is needed?” Lee asked incredulously.

“I thought the same thing,” Gaara said. “But he burst into Lady Tsunade’s office a few hours ago demanding that his team be assigned and she agreed right away. I assume she has her reasons.”

“How long have you been in the village?” Lee asked, trying but failing to keep the jealousy out of his voice.

Gaara smiled at him. “We arrived late last night and I’ve been in the Hokage’s office since. I wanted to come straight here but I have to put my duty to my village first on trips like this.”

“Of course! I understand that!” Lee said quickly. “Come on, I will walk you to the tower before I meet my team on the training field!”

* * * * *

Lee had been waiting outside of the Hokage’s tower since sundown and was on his two thousand three hundred and twenty third push up when Gaara finally returned. Lady Tsunade breezed past without a word, slamming the tower door viciously behind her. Shizune and Sakura hurried afterwards, exchanging worried looks. 

“Was it that bad?” Lee asked, leaping to his feet.

The sand armour retreated from Gaara’s face to reveal tired eyes and a grim mouth. “We’re going to negotiate further tomorrow, but he’s being unbelievably difficult.”

“It’s like he thinks that if he’s a big enough asshole, we’ll just give up and let him have his way,” Kankuro grumbled. “The bastard’s even taken to calling himself the Kusakage.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Lee asked, reaching out to wrap a steadying arm around Gaara.

“Can we just get some take out and go to your place,” Gaara suggested wearily, leaning against his side.

“How about you invite Lee to our room instead.” Temari scowled.

“That sounds good,” Lee agreed quickly, trying to avert another argument.

Shikamaru was waiting for them in the hotel room, apparently napping on the floor between the beds. He stood up quickly when Temari came in.

“How were the talks?” he asked.

“Absolute bullshit,” Temari said flatly before pulling him into a kiss.

“Oh, come on!” Kankuro cried. “I have to endure that dickhead all day and now I’m the fifth wheel? This isn’t cool, guys!”

“So invite someone over,” Temari growled.

Gaara rolled his eyes and flopped onto the bed. Lee sat down gingerly beside him.

“Kankuro, go get us food,” Gaara ordered. “You two, knock it off.”

“Yes, Lord Bossypants,” Kankuro grumbled as he headed out the door. Temari and Shikamaru pulled apart reluctantly and sat down to begin discussing the day’s meeting.

“I’m not going to be like this the whole time I’m here,” Gaara promised Lee. “I’ve just been awake for almost two weeks now and I have a terrible headache.”

“Oh,” Lee said softly. “Come here then.” 

He pulled Gaara’s head into his lap and began carding his fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. Gaara sighed deeply and finally began to relax.

“Better?” Lee asked hopefully, ignoring Temari watching him from the corner of her eye.

“A little,” Gaara whispered, one corner of his mouth lifting. “Better keep doing it.”

By the time Kankuro returned with six containers of sushi and Naruto, Gaara had all but melted into Lee’s lap as he gently worked out the knots in his neck. Kankuro and Naruto attempted to drag Temari and Shikamaru into their debate about a new and deeply inappropriate nickname for the leader of Kusagakure. Lee ignored them and set two packages of sushi and one pair of chopsticks on the bed next to him. 

“Open up,” he said, tapping on Gaara’s chin so that he could drop a roll into his mouth. He used the same chopsticks to pick up his own food, and carried on like that, alternating between feeding himself and Gaara.

“That’s really disgusting,” Kankuro complained after a few minutes. “If you spoil him like that, do you have any idea how hard you’ll make life for Temari and I?”

“Fuck off, Kankuro,” Gaara said peacefully, then opened his mouth for another bite of food.

“How come you never feed me like that?” Shikamaru complained to Temari.

“If you ever do a hard day’s work in your life, let me know and I might consider it,” she retorted.

* * * * *

Gaara found Lee teaching taijutsu techniques in the academy yard and beckoned him with a quick wave of his hand. Lee left his charges enthusiastically punching straw dummies and hurried over to meet him.

“How are the negotiations?” He asked, his hand trailing absentmindedly from Gaara’s shoulder down to his wrist.

“Better today.” Gaara shuffled closer to him and tangled their fingers together. “Lady Tsunade lost her temper after about ten minutes of that man’s antics and told him that if he wasn’t going to cooperate then we’d consider the attacks an act of war, and he could go back to his village to await our reprisal.”

Lee sucked in a startled breath.

“Yeah, I thought we were in trouble then, too,” Gaara said. “But he suddenly became a lot more agreeable.” He looked around the yard and moved even closer to Lee, whispering, “Clearly, one of those shinobi was carrying a secret that he really doesn’t want us to find.”

Lee didn’t hear him. Gaara was standing so close their bodies were almost touching, and his warm breath against Lee’s ear had distracted him utterly.

“What?” he mumbled, eyelids falling heavy, a pink flush rising across the bridge of his nose.

“Nevermind,” Gaara murmured. “I’ll tell you later when there aren’t so many little eavesdroppers.”

Lee’s eyes snapped open and he glared at his students. Left unsupervised, they had gathered in a large cluster, eyeing Lee and Gaara, and exchanging whispers and giggles behind their hands.

“This doesn’t look like practice!” Tenten barked at the students as she appeared in the academy doorway. She made a shooing motion at Lee and Gaara as she began rounding up the students for a lecture in shuriken techniques. Lee gave her a grateful thumbs up, and led Gaara out of the practice yard.

“Come on!” He broke into a run once they reached the road. “If you have time, I want to show you my dojo!”

“You have your own dojo?” Gaara wondered. They ran hand in hand towards the woods, and then along a winding, shaded trail.

“I built it myself!” Lee told him proudly as they arrived at a large wooden structure in a clearing.

“You built this yourself?” Gaara asked. “With just your hands? No jutsu?”

“Just hard work,” Lee affirmed.

“How long did it take?”

“A day or two.” Lee shrugged. “Come inside, I’ll show you around.”

The inside was a large open space, with exposed rafters and sunlight pouring in through high windows. Gaara walked the perimeter of the bare wooden floor, feeling thoroughly impressed.

“What happened here?” He asked, pointing to a patch of wall where the beams were patched sloppily, contrasting with the rest of the walls which were tidily built and sanded smooth.

“Oh, that.” Lee bit his lip. “I threw Naruto through the wall again and still have not had the time to repair it properly.”

“You threw Naruto through the wall,” Gaara repeated slowly. “Naruto?”

“You know how Naruto is,” Lee shrugged. “It is really easy to get the first few punches in. He is only formidable once he gets back up again.”

“He is a little slow on the uptake sometimes,” Gaara conceded, smiling fondly.

“So, I was thinking,” Lee said hopefully. “Maybe we could spar a bit.”

Gaara froze. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Please,” Lee cried. “I promise not to throw you through the wall too.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Gaara whispered.

“Oh, are you worried about wrecking the dojo?” Lee asked, smiling brightly. “It is easy to fix! Especially if Yamato-sensei will help!”

“Don’t you remember the last time we fought?” Gaara said through gritted teeth.

Lee waved the memory away. “That was a long time ago. Everything was completely different.”

“Lee, I nearly killed you. On purpose,” Gaara croaked.

Lee stared at him for a long moment, suddenly serious. “Do you think I was an innocent victim in all that? You were not really a person to me then; you were just the chance I had been waiting for to prove that hard work can beat genius. Gai-sensei had stopped me from crushing Sasuke Uchiha about a week before and I was spoiling to destroy someone who was supposed to be unbeatable. As soon as I landed that first kick, I wanted blood, Gaara. I was ready to tear you limb from limb if it would show everyone in that room what I was capable of.” 

Gaara just stared back at him, breathing heavily. “I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you again.”

“You would not hurt me, though,” Lee said softly. “I know you, remember. I trust you.”

Gaara launched himself at Lee, knocking him back against the wall and crushing their mouths together desperately. Lee’s hands came up to his shoulders, holding him in place so that he could kiss him more gently. 

“I just do not want what happened back then to hang over our heads forever,” Lee whispered when he pulled away. 

“We can try it,” Gaara agreed. “But carefully, okay?”

Lee nodded and they retreated to opposite ends of the dojo. 

“Ready?” Lee called. 

Gaara was nearly shaking with nerves but he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. 

“Go!” Lee shouted, and charged forwards. 

The first few kicks and punches met only the sand shield. Lee whooped and laughed, bouncing away after each failed attempt. Gaara began to relax. By the time sweat began to appear on Lee’s brow, Gaara could almost have forgotten that this game was meant to be an imitation of something more deadly.

“You need to be faster,” Gaara taunted, as the sand came up to block Lee’s fist, inches from Gaara’s eye. 

“Ha! Just watch me! I am going to get to you with the weights still on,” Lee boasted.

“We’ll see about that,” Gaara called back. The shield came up again and Gaara seized his moment, punching through it from the inside. Lee yelped in surprise but grabbed his wrist in an iron grip and pulled him off balance, dropping his own weight low to force Gaara into a flip. The sand came rushing after him to create a dome that stopped Lee’s spinning kick so close that Gaara could feel the sand vibrating. 

“You have gotten sneaky!” Lee shouted happily as a barrage of punches rained down on the shell of sand. Gaara crept around the side of it carefully, silently. Sand rushed across the floor to circle around behind Lee and wind around his ankles. 

“No!” Lee tried to jump away but the weights slowed him down just enough for the sand to keep its hold on him. Gaara hit him in the stomach with a flying tackle that brought them both crashing to the floor. 

“Got you,” he declared. The surprise on Lee’s face mirrored the shock Gaara felt at having actually succeeded in knocking him down. 

“Is that so?” Lee tried to flip them over but the sand held him fast against the floor.

“It is so." For a moment, Gaara hesitated, unsure what he was supposed to do next. Then, an idea came to him. He used the combined weight of his body and the gourd to pin Lee to the floor and clumsily tickled along his ribs.

Lee writhed and spluttered. “Do not tickle me! That is against sparring rules!”

“Who makes the rules?” Gaara asked, reaching between them to tickle Lee’s stomach.

“It is my dojo,” Lee protested, giggling helplessly.

“But I’m the Kazekage!” Gaara reminded him, tickling under his arms. 

“That is not fair!” Lee protested, thrashing. He broke one arm free and poked at a sensitive spot on Gaara’s side.

Gaara laughed at him. “Sand armour’s not ticklish.”

“Not fair!” Lee yelled again. He wiggled free of the sand and managed to get an arm around Gaara and throw him to the floor. By now Gaara was laughing too hard to get up again, though no sound escaped his lips. Lee seized both of Gaara’s wrists and held on tight as they lay on their sides panting and grinning at each other.

“That was a dirty trick,” Lee gasped. “Normally you just stand behind the sand. I have never seen you actually fight someone with your hands before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Gaara shrugged, finally managing to catch his breath.

“Now,” Lee said, becoming businesslike. “I concede defeat. No more tickling.”

“No more,” Gaara promised. Lee released his hands and flopped onto his back, so Gaara scooted across the floor to tuck himself against Lee’s side. “That wasn’t bad. We can try it again later, if you want.”

“Only if you promise to never do that again,” Lee panted, resting his arm across Gaara’s shoulders.

“No,” Gaara propped his chin up on Lee’s chest. “If you don’t want to be tickled, you have to be faster and more alert. Those are the rules.”

Lee chuckled. “Suna must be a weird place with you making the rules.”

Gaara smiled down at him. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

“Yeah?” Lee asked.

“I think it would be nice if we worked on a collaborative jutsu. You know, an attack that combines both of our strengths. One that only we can do.”

Lee sat up so fast that he almost knocked Gaara over. “You are brilliant!” He exclaimed, grabbing Gaara’s face and kissing him so enthusiastically that he clashed their teeth together. “Oh sorry!” He kissed Gaara more carefully in apology, not seeming to mind that the sand armour left grains of sand clinging to his own lips. “I have so many ideas!”


	2. Imminence

“That’s better but I still think it could be a little faster,” Gaara rasped, lying flat on his back on the wooden floor. It was his fourth day in Konoha, the third day in a row that he and Lee had spent what free time they could manage in the dojo working on their collaborative attack.

Slumped against the wall beside him, Lee nodded and picked up a water bottle. Gaara held out his hand for it when Lee was finished and drank gratefully. It was an unseasonably cold autumn day and though their breath had hung in the air as visible clouds when they first entered the dojo, they were now both hot, sweaty, and parched.

“Why’d you build your dojo all the way out here in the woods anyway?” Gaara asked once he had caught his breath again.

“Tsunade would not let me build it near anything breakable, like other buildings,” Lee admitted, idly shaking stray sand out of his leg warmers.

“We’re all alone out here,” Gaara pointed out, an idea beginning to take shape in his mind. “I hadn’t realized before just now, but normally when we’re together Temari is hanging around somewhere nearby, or she’s forcing Kankuro to check in on us for her. She has no idea we’re out here.”

“Yeah,” Lee agreed. “I think we can thank Shikamaru for keeping her busy.”

Gaara sat up and shuffled a bit closer to Lee. “None of our friends are out here either.”

Lee laughed. “Did you know when I got back from our date I found them all hiding in my apartment. They had been spying on us from the windows.”

“I’m not surprised,” Gaara said. “They’re a very nosy group.”

Gaara scooted closer still so he was sitting right next to Lee, shoulders brushing. “My point is, we’re all alone out here,” he said again.

“Oh!” Lee exclaimed, finally catching on. He took Gaara’s hand. “Then I would very much like to kiss you.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Gaara murmured. 

Lee slid his free hand into Gaara’s hair and kissed him, sweet and slow. Gaara leaned into him, squeezing his eyes shut against the uprising tide of emotion in his chest. He parted his lips and stroked his tongue against Lee’s lower lip, his hand finding the collar of Lee's vest to pull him closer. Lee made a tiny noise of surprise and tentatively copied the movement. Gaara chased Lee’s tongue back into his mouth with his own, fireworks going off behind his eyelids. Lee moaned softly and Gaara felt the sound reverberate down his spine. He scrambled into Lee’s lap, straddling his thighs, needing to be closer. 

All of their kisses until now had been either slow, soft moments of lingering sweetness, or clumsy, hastily stolen collisions of lips and occasionally teeth. Gaara treasured each and every one of those kisses, but this was something entirely different. His blood had turned to fire in his veins, stoked by the slick heat of Lee’s mouth, the salt on his lips. He never wanted this to stop, couldn’t bring himself to pull away even for air. His breath came only in short gasps that seemed to carry no oxygen to his brain. All he could do was cling to Lee as Lee kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, hands tangled in Gaara’s hair, holding his head at just the right angle for his hungry mouth.

The sand in the gourd gave a rustle of warning and for the first time in his life, Gaara wanted so badly to ignore it. The cork popped loose and the sand rustled more insistently. Gaara wrenched himself back and found himself staring down at Lee who was looking up at him with wide, heated eyes, his lips pink and swollen, a high flush across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Gaara thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Forgetting about the sand, Gaara leaned in to kiss him again, but was brought up short, Lee’s bandaged fingers pressed against his lips.

“Listen,” Lee whispered breathlessly. Gaara sat very still and caught the sound of footsteps on the path.

“Well if Lee will be anywhere, it’s in his dojo,” Gai-sensei’s voice boomed, unnecessarily loud, and surprisingly close. “That’s where he spends all his free training time. And I imagine your brother is probably with him.”

Gaara bailed out of Lee’s lap just as he heard Temari’s voice grumble, “That’s exactly what I’m worried about.” 

The dojo door banged open and Gai-sensei’s form blocked the entranceway for a moment, standing with his hands on his hips. Temari shouldered past him and narrowed her eyes as she looked at Lee and Gaara, sitting side by side against the far wall, sweaty, disheveled, and breathing hard.

“What are you two doing in here?” she demanded.

“We’re just taking a break from sparring,” Gaara croaked, reaching for the water bottle.

Gai-sensei’s wide grin sparkled in the sunlight streaming in through the open door. “Is that the kids are calling it these days, Lord Kazekage?” He winked at Gaara.

Temari turned to glare at Gai, and Gaara took the opportunity to cast a sidelong look at Lee. He could not have looked more guilty. He had drawn his knees up to his chest, and was sitting wide eyed, his fingers pressed over his mouth.

“What do you want, Temari?” Gaara grumbled.

“You two are both needed in the Hokage’s office, right away,” Gai boomed. “Things have taken an interesting turn.”

Gaara was on his feet immediately, gathering his cloak and hitching his gourd around his shoulders. Lee shook himself and crossed the room as a green blur to gather his own cloak as well. 

“What’s happening?” Gaara asked as they jogged down the path with his sister and Lee’s teacher.

“The Grass ninja have disappeared,” Temari informed him. “After we returned the bodies to them, they just vanished. The whole camp is gone and everything.”

“But that makes no sense,” Gaara growled. “Why wouldn’t they stick around until the ones from our village could be sent here too? We did agree to that.”

“That’s exactly what we’re worried about,” Gai said. “He knows that you’re here and that it will take you and your entourage three days to reach Suna, maybe two days or less if you traveled at high speed without any baggage. We worry that this may all have been a ruse and he intends to strike at Suna while you are not there to defend it.”

“We cannot let that happen!” Lee shouted.

“No, Lee! Indeed we cannot!” Gai agreed.

* * * * *

“We can’t know for sure that he’ll move against Suna,” Shikamaru insisted, slouching against the Hokage’s desk. “If one of the bodies we returned to him still has the secret he’s trying to keep from us, then it makes sense that he’d retreat back to Kusagakure as fast as possible. If this is about something more than just a secret in a corpse, which I believe it is, then there are three things that might happen.”

“Go on,” Tsunade prompted.

“He might still retreat to Kusagakure and make a move at a later time, he might strike at Suna while Gaara is away hoping to find the village weakened, as you suspect, or this has nothing to do with either of those two things, in which case he’ll fall into the trap I intend to set for him.”

“We’ve sent some of our ANBU who are able to travel quickly ahead to Suna to forewarn them in case he attacks,” Tsunade assured Gaara. “Sai has gone as well, since he felt he could get there even quicker and be of assistance. Team Kurenai is trying to pick up the so-called Kusakage’s trail. If anyone can track him down, it’s them.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Gaara said. “Tell me about this trap.”

Shikamaru eyed him carefully. “How do you feel about acting as bait?”

Lee stepped forward angrily but was brought up short by Gaara’s outstretched hand.

“The last time we acted as bait, things nearly fell apart,” Gaara replied quietly. “But tell me about your idea.”

“Well that’s what gave me the idea,” Shikamaru explained. “See, there were some things that Temari told me about the talks that didn’t sit right with me. That’s why I started going along with her as a guard. The Kusakage paid far more attention to Gaara than to Lady Tsunade, his attendants’ eyes were always on Gaara, Temari and Kankuro. And there were some things he said, making oblique references to Gaara having been a jinchuriki and other details about his past. It seemed off. Not least of all because he knew too much about it.” 

“Okay. And?” Gaara asked

“I don’t think that the Kusakage took off because he got what he wanted from us. I think it’s because what he really wants is for Gaara to leave the safety of the village. His next move is to attack the Kazekage himself when he is outside the protection of either Konoha or Suna. That was the purpose of this whole ridiculous stunt.”

“Why would he do that?” Lee demanded.

“I believe that the assassin you fought several months ago and everything that’s happened with these Grass shinobi are connected.” Shikamaru explained. “I’ve picked up on some things they’ve said, a few phrases that are almost identical to things that your old Councilman’s agent told Ibiki about their plans to assassinate Gaara and take over the Kazekage’s position. Those spies may have been sent to feel around the village, and the Kusakage may desperately need their corpses back, but Gaara is the true target here.”

“Gaara, I think he’s probably right,” Temari said anxiously. “Have you seen this?”

She crossed to Tsunade’s desk and lifted a cloth to reveal a black tanbo, lacquered until it shone like obsidian. Gaara could see Temari’s anxious face reflected and warped on its surface.

“That is. . .” Lee started to say.

“Yes, I thought you'd recognize it,” Shikamaru said. Lee winced at the memory and absentmindedly rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We found it hidden within a seal on one of those bodies before we returned them.”

“We’ve learned a bit more about what it is,” Shizune explained. “The weapon was developed within Kusagakure and other than the attack that Lee intercepted a few months ago, I can’t find any reports of them ever having been used anywhere else, or by anyone else. It’s made using a forbidden jutsu that originally belonged to an independent clan who were defeated by Kusagakure a few years ago.”

“This does change things.” Gaara nodded slowly and then asked. “So, how will we act as bait?”

“You’ll head back to Suna tomorrow. You, your retinue, and a Leaf escort team,” Shikamaru explained. “You’ll make good time back to Suna, but you won’t hurry, and you’ll travel ostentatiously, out in the open. If this guy who wants to call himself the Kusakage is going to attack you while you’re travelling, he doesn’t have time to send for reinforcements.”

“So the idea is to just head home and defend ourselves with our superior strength if we’re attacked?” Kankuro scoffed. “How is that any different from what we would have done anyway?”

“Well normally you wouldn’t leave so soon after an enemy ninja just up and disappeared into thin air,” Shikamaru said irritably. “You’d wait here a while, you’d move cautiously. But understand this: I’m not asking you to just defeat the Kusakage or repel his attack, I’m asking you to capture him.”

“Holding another village’s leader captive is a serious matter, Shikamaru.” Gaara reminded him. “Even if he is the leader of a smaller village which recently made a hostile move against us. Are you sure about this?”

“If he’s captured attacking you and we hold him in Suna, then we are well within our rights,” Shikamaru assured him. “I’ve checked the law.”

“Alright, we’ll do it.” Gaara agreed. “Which Leaf teams will you be sending along?”

Shizune handed him a list and he nodded once. “Approved. Let's go.”


	3. When the Dam Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter contains depictions of violence consistent with canon. The deaths of unnamed minor characters are briefly described. Blood and injuries are described. This chapter also contains a description of an event similar to a natural disaster.

On the second day out, Lee was forcing himself to match his comrades’ measured pace, the palanquin’s support beam balanced on his shoulder, entertaining them with a story about a time he and Naruto got themselves into trouble by inciting a water fight at a hot spring.  The palanquin shook dangerously as the team of chunin assigned to carry it laughed themselves to tears at Lee’s description of a frothy tidal wave, crowned with stray towels and slippers, crashing over the wall that separated the men’s and women’s pools. 

Lee had quickly become a favourite among the palanquin bearers, not least of all because his boundless energy and enthusiasm for helping others had resulted in him wedging himself into their ranks and carrying the stupid thing for most of the first day, and now well into the second without switching out for breaks. Gaara hated the palanquin. It was boring, stuffy, and he felt that his shinobi should not have to carry him around like a pampered lord. Between his own weight and the gourd, it took six chunin to carry the ridiculous contraption comfortably. But the council had insisted that walking everywhere wasn’t “dignified” and his requests to travel on a sand platform of his own creation, or by camel, had been denied out of hand.

“But then,” Lee was saying, “We heard Sakura’s voice screaming,  _ NAARUUUTOOO! _ You know the way she does. And then we heard Tenten shouting for the other girls to take cover. That should have warned us but there was not really time to react anyway. Suddenly all the water came rushing back over what was left of the wall, but not like a wave anymore. If I had not known better, I would have thought it was a water style jutsu. But no, she had just punched the bottom of the pool very hard. Naruto was screaming at the top of his lungs, and I think Neji invented several new curse words. Poor Konahomaru got his head stuck in a bucket and kept running into the fence. The senseis were no help at all, they just disappeared in a puff of smoke. And we were all washed clear out of the hot spring. I think we landed about two streets over, in a fish market, if you would believe it, and -” He cut off with a wordless shout and lurched to one side.

“Shuriken!” Gaara heard Neji shout. “It’s an ambush!”

“Set him down! Formation!” the jonin leader at the back of the palanquin barked out. The wooden box had no sooner bumped to the ground than Gaara leapt out of it, sand spraying in all directions.

“To me!” He called. The Sand shinobi did not need to be told twice. They hurried into a tight knot around their Kazekage, pulling the Leaf shinobi along with them so that he could throw up a barrier of protective sand around all of them. Shuriken and kunai rattled ineffectually against the outside of the barrier.

“Shikamaru, it seems that you were correct,” Gaara said calmly. “Is anyone hurt?”

“No,” Lee said, blood trickling down his cheek from underneath his hair. Gaara fought a smile but made a mental note to have a few words with him about this later.

“Is it the Kusakage?”

Shikamaru looked distressed. “They’re definitely from Kusagakure, but I didn’t see the Kusakage with them.”

“No matter,” Gaara said. “Where are they coming from?”

“All sides,” Kankuro reported.

“Hmm,” Gaara pressed two fingers over his eye and waited while the Third Eye formed out of sand, he sent it surreptitiously over the top of the sand wall, evaluating the terrain and the enemy. Grass shinobi surrounded them in a loose circle. If they could break through, a high ridged hill rising steeply from the river provided a secure, defensible position.

“Follow the sand! We’re moving!” he called out, willing the Eye back to the edge of the barrier. A shuriken whined past so close it made his real eyes water. Then he saw the hourglass emblem on the brow of a shinobi who was flinging kunai decorated with explosive tags at the barrier. It had been slashed through by a crooked gouge in the metal. He drew in a deep breath.

“Traitors,” he muttered.

“You saw them too, then?” Temari was tense at his side as they stepped slowly and carefully along, the sand barrier rumbling across the ground.

“Rogue sand shinobi,” Kankuro spat into the flattened grass under their feet.

“That’s what I thought. What a pain in the ass,” Shikamaru complained.

Lightning arced up the front of the barrier as it bore down on the encroaching shinobi and Gaara released the Third Eye Jutsu. It was a curious sensation. His own two eyes were unaffected by the lightning flash, but the eye of sand had not closed fast enough and the image of the lightning strike was seared into Gaara’s brain, disorienting him. He stumbled and a pair of large, warm hands braced against his back, steadying him.

“Keep going,” Lee’s voice was saying in his ear. “I have got you.”

The knot of Leaf and Sand shinobi enclosed within the sand barrier soldiered on inch by inch, the ground beginning to slope upwards beneath their feet. Where lightning caused the sand to crystallize, more rushed in to take its place. The Grass shinobi had one water style user, but his efforts were not enough to cause Gaara any more than an inconvenience. Gaara had more than enough chakra to see them to the hilltop, but Lee’s hands never left his back, steadying him.

When he summoned the Third Eye again, its vision was still dim and patchy, but he could see that the enemy shinobi were assembling at the bottom of the hill.

“Be ready,” he called out. “I’m going to reshape the wall so we can fight back. We’re going to hit them hard. Neji, look for the Kusakage. Choji, Ino, paper bombs and keep them coming. Shikamaru, if you can catch any with your stitching, do it. Otherwise hang back and put your brain to good use.”

“What about me?” Lee asked, as the long range fighters assembled at the front.

“Stay close to me,” Gaara replied quietly. Lee squeezed his hand.

Temari and Tenten were poised shoulder to shoulder, fan and scroll at the ready. A few shinobi from the Sand village, along with Kankuro and his own scroll, joined them. Ino and Choji darted forwards hauling crates of explosives.

“Ready!” The call was taken up along the line.

“Now!” Gaara called. The sand barrier crashed down and reformed itself into row upon row of outward facing sand spikes, points gleaming deadly in the sun. Tenten’s scroll unravelled just as Temari’s fan swished upwards, creating a hailstorm of jagged metal. The first few shinobi to advance were pinned mercilessly to the earth like insects on a specimen board. Lightning struck out from the hands of a Grass ninja and the sand blocked it at every turn, leaving behind strange formations of crystalized rock, and each one costing Gaara just a little more effort. Exploding tags rained down from the hilltop, creating a confusion of smoke and noise. The Crow swooped out of the nest of sand spikes to spit poisoned needles among its foes.

There was a great rushing sound and something white swooped low overhead.

For one horrible moment, Gaara’s memory was filled with the scent of detonating clay, but this bird looked papery and was black around the edges. It circled and swooped low again and something dark blue dropped from its back in their midst. Kakashi landed on his feet, light as a cat, and turned to smirk at Gai.

“Let me show you how this is done,” He teased, brushing off Gai’s indignant response as he rushed towards the edge of the wall, hand signs flashing in a blur. The river reared up in the form of a dragon and its gaping jaws crashed down upon a trio of Grass shinobi. Papery lions leapt from the great bird’s back to stalk another.

Neji appeared at Gaara’s elbow, the veins standing blue and swollen in the pale skin of his face, pupilless, pearlescent eyes staring right through him. “The Kusakage is hiding in the next valley. He’s got Kiyomori with him, as Shikamaru suspected. They’re guarded by three Grass shinobi and a rogue Sand ninja. I’ve taken the liberty of calling Sai back. I can assemble my team and he can carry us over. We’ll bring him down for you.”

“Tenten is needed here,” Gaara reminded him. “And Lee is staying with me. We have a secret technique that I think we’ll need now. But take Sai, Gai, and Baki with you. Kankuro, too, if you want. I have no doubt you can manage it.”

Neji’s bottomless eyes lingered on Lee for a moment but he nodded curtly and set about gathering his friends. The paper bird wheeled around and settled into the enclosure of the sand spikes. Sai and Yamato leapt off its back. Yamato rushed to join the fighting while Sai helped Neji assemble the team and climb onto the bird’s back.

“Are you ready?” Gaara asked Lee, squeezing his fingers. Their close range fighters began leaping past the sand spikes to engage the ever encroaching Grass shinobi. 

“I was born ready!” Lee declared, fire in his eyes.

Gaara leaned up and kissed him quickly, then stalked to the edge of the barrier as Lee sprinted forwards.

“Severe Leaf Sandstorm!” he cried, and with a great rush several of the spikes dissolved and coalesced into a towering wave. Tenten and Temari paused to watch. The Grass shinobi fell back before the onrushing cloud of furiously teeming sand, but not fast enough. A wild, berserker cry rang out across the valley and Lee burst from the breaking crest of the sand wave, flipping in midair to launch himself into a furious kick. His heel connected with a rogue Sand ninja’s face with a sickening crunch. He used the momentum of the kick to throw himself back into the sky, bandages unspooling around his wrists. Below him, the sand writhed and swirled, swamping an entire squad of Kusagakure shinobi and sweeping them further from the hilltop.

“Desert Vines!” Lee called out. Gaara stood in the midst of the ring of Sand and Leaf shinobi, both hands stretched towards Lee, beginning to sweat beneath the sand armor from the effort. The jutsu still wasn’t perfect and he had thrown Lee too far during the first attack. The sand shot upwards to twine itself around Lee’s loosened bandages, forming two long, shimmering ropes that trailed from his wrists. As he landed, he spun, lashing out into the enemy ranks with the sand whips. Blood splattered, canvas vests tore. Even at a distance, Gaara heard the Grass shinobi crying out in confusion and alarm. 

The lightning user charged forwards, deadly bolts leaping towards Lee from his hands and the sand rose up to meet it, solidifying eternally where they met and sending frissons of pain through Gaara’s chakra network. Another wave of sand gathered Lee up, carrying him back towards Gaara. Lee rode atop it and as spikes formed on its surface he punched and kicked them with perfect accuracy, sending them flying into the enemy ranks. The lightning user circled around and charged up for another attack, aiming for Lee’s back. In one heart stopping moment, Gaara realized that at this distance, with his chakra as depleted as it was, he could not move the sand fast enough to intercept. The rows of sand spikes on the hilltop shuddered and an enemy shinobi was able to kick his way through. Temari and Tenten fell on him at once, the fan furled into a blunt weapon, chains and sickle blades flashing. Gaara had no choice but to turn his attention to reinforcing their defenses. He could only hope that the sand would know to protect Lee automatically. 

With his heart in his throat, he watched Lee turn as the charge built in the Grass shinobi’s hand. He reared back to strike, but the bolts died on his fingertips as Kakashi came charging out of the fray. One thousand birds sang of their hymn of death as he plunged his fist through the other ninja’s chest.

As the lightning user fell, another Grass ninja took his place with a furious scream of rage and grief, forcing Kakashi back. She called spears of stone up out of the earth, not seeming to notice or care that they missed Kakashi, impaling one of her own comrades instead. She turned to look for Lee, but the sand had swept him safely out of the field, depositing him at Gaara’s feet. She screamed again, moved through a quick series of hand signs, and slammed her fist into the ground. The earth trembled, rippled. The hilltop bucked beneath Gaara’s feet.

A cry of alarm went up on both sides of the battlefield as the rumbling went on. Roiling black clouds gathered overhead even as they watched. Everything came to a halt for a moment as even the Grass shinobi were transfixed with horror. Lightning split the sky. Three quick strikes; one to the river, causing the water to froth, steam and hiss, one to the hill opposite them and one crashing down in their midst. Leaf and Sand shinobi were thrown to the ground. The hilltop beneath them heaved and convulsed sickeningly. The opposite slope went first, lurching slowly and then collapsing all at once into the river. That was what saved them. Gaara had seen it happen already and knew how to react as the ground slid away beneath them, gathering speed. The sand spikes flattened and scattered, seeking out Leaf and Sand shinobi, bearing the ones who had been fighting further afield back towards Gaara. The sand solidified into a wide platform beneath their feet just as the ground it had rested upon rushed into the swollen river. Their raft spun wildly as it was borne along on the furious torrent of mud.

Gaara dropped to his knees; the effort to create and sustain a sand wall to keep them safe had been nothing, but to keep a platform intact and upright carrying this many people, battered by mud and water, took every bit of concentration and strength he could muster. He knew he would only be able to hold it for a few minutes more.

“Yamato,” he rasped. The ANBU veteran seemed to understand immediately what he wanted, and sprang to the forefront of the sand raft, hands flying in front of him in rapid signs. A thick wooden palisade reared up out of the current. Waves of mud smashed against the wall, eddied and rushed off around the sides at dizzying speed. The sand raft lurched and crashed up against the side of the wall. Gaara struggled to hold it upright and wooden beams shot out to steady it. Handholds appeared on the side of the wall.

“Climb!” Yamato shouted above the roar of the landslide. What he intended them to do once they got to the top, Gaara did not know. His brain was running too sluggishly now to think that far ahead, but he was sure the wall was safer than the ever weakening sand raft.

Sand and Leaf shinobi scrambled for the top of the wall. Shouts of delight and relief rang out over the roar of the flood as Sai reappeared, alone now on the back of his bird. He alighted at the top of the wall where he hurriedly began scribbling bird after bird and helping his companions climb onto their backs in two and threes. One after another, they took to the air, sailing west towards Wind Country. Gaara remained on the rapidly crumbling sand platform until he was sure that everyone would make it to the top. Lee lingered at his side stubbornly. 

“Everyone else is gone, Gaara,” Lee shouted, his fingers digging into Gaara’s elbow, pulling him to his feet. “Climb.”

Releasing the sand raft came as a huge relief. Gaara had so little chakra left and his exhausted arms and legs trembled with the effort as he climbed. At times like this, he could almost miss Shukaku. 

Halfway up the wall, Gaara’s energy ran out. His knees buckled and he would have fallen if it had not been for Lee’s reflexes. His arm snapped out, catching Gaara by the gourd’s harness and hauling him up over Lee’s shoulder like a sack of flour.

Lee continued to climb, as though unhindered by Gaara’s weight and the bulk of the nearly empty gourd.

“Sorry,” he murmured against Lee’s back.

“Kakashi-sensei likes to climb cliffs with one hand tied behind his back,” Lee shouted, laughing out loud. “Now I see why!”

Sai knelt beside the paper bird at the top of the wall, alone now, waiting to carry Lee and Gaara away. They were mere metres from the top when a loud crack echoed through the air and the wall shuddered and lurched as some unseen weight below the surface of the mud collided with its base. Lee clung to the handholds with all his strength, gripping Gaara tightly against his shoulder. Gaara could feel the muscles in Lee’s back straining with the effort to hold on. There was a sudden surge of chakra, a crackle of energy that made the hair on the back of Gaara’s neck stand on end, as Lee tore open the first gate so he wouldn’t lose his grip. With the horrible creaking, groaning, snapping sound of wood slowly tearing, the wall toppled back towards the surface of the flood.

“Sai!” Lee shouted. “Fly!”

Sai leapt for the back of the bird, just as it took flight. The face of the wall rushed down towards the churning mud, bearing Lee and Gaara down beneath it, splinters flying as the current tore it apart. Sai’s bird swooped at an impossible angle, wings beating furiously as it tried to catch them. Lee pushed himself away from what remained of the wall, flinging them both into empty air and stretched out his free hand. Inky feathers brushed his fingertips and slipped away. 

They were falling, plummeting down towards the dark, churning surface of the torrent. Gaara squeezed his eyes shut and used the last of his chakra and the sand that had formed the gourd to create a protective shell around himself and Lee. It was a small, fragile thing, but it held together as they crashed down into the swollen river, supporting their weight and bobbing on the surface as the great wave caused by the falling wall swept them downriver at a sickening speed. Tangled with Lee inside the shell, Gaara felt the last reserves of his energy draining away, there was nothing more he could do. 

It was perfectly dark inside the sand shell and Gaara’s eyes were shut tight, but he saw Yashamaru’s face in front of him, saying, “ _ The sand which automatically tries to protect you is like a mother’s love. I believe that sand is filled with your mother’s will. . .”  _

Gaara’s last conscious thought was a silent prayer,  _ Mother, if you’re still there. . . _


	4. The Path of the Setting Sun

He woke to a piercing pain in the centre of his chest, gasped in shock and instinctively curled into a ball.

“I am sorry!” Lee shouted, snatching his knuckles away from Gaara’s sternum. “You would not wake up!”

“Where are we?” Gaara groaned.

“I have no idea,” Lee replied, quieter now. “I think we have washed up on some sort of rock formation. I am not sure. It is cloudy and I cannot see much, even with the fire.”

Gaara tilted his head to the side and saw only darkness. “Fire?”

“Out here,” Lee gestured behind him and Gaara realized that Lee was back lit by flames that Gaara could not see as he was lying at the bottom of a bowl like structure. Lee reached down and lifted him gently. Where his arms brushed the edges of the structure, flakes of mud and clumps of sand crumbled away. It looked to be as thin as paper and barely as strong, yet somehow it had sheltered them from the flood and brought them safely ashore. 

Gaara realized that he was too weak to even hold onto Lee as he carried him to the small campfire and sat down on the ground.

“How are you feeling?” Lee asked anxiously.

“Tired,” Gaara croaked. “My whole body hurts.”

“I should think so,” Lee said. “You exhausted all your chakra. Other shinobi have died from that, you know. I was so -” He shook his head. “I am glad that you are alright.”

“Me too,” Gaara rasped. “So what do we do now? Where are the others?”

“I have to believe that the others escaped,” Lee whispered, cradling Gaara in his lap and peering at him in the darkness with wide, earnest eyes. One side of his face was still painted with dried blood and his hair was matted to his forehead. “The last time I saw them they were flying away on Sai’s drawings. I do not know how long he can maintain so many of those, though.”

Gaara tried to nod but his neck cramped. 

“As for us,” Lee continued. “You must eat some food pills and get some proper sleep. It is the only way you will recover.”

“I hate food pills,” Gaara grumbled, but let Lee drop them into his mouth and hold a canteen to his lips to wash them down.

“When was the last time you slept?” Lee asked, smoothing Gaara’s hair away from his forehead. “Passing out from chakra exhaustion does not count.”

“Three or four nights ago,” Gaara replied, his eyelids already growing heavy. “Don’t worry, sleep will be easy tonight. And you don’t need to be alarmed if I have a hard time waking up in the morning. It happens when I stay awake too long. As long as I’m breathing, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” Lee whispered.

“Hey, Lee?” Gaara opened one eye. “Why did you stay with me?”

“What do you mean?” Lee frowned, fussing with the collar of Gaara’s jacket so it would sit more comfortably against his throat.

“When everyone was climbing the wall, you stayed on the sand with me. I was weak; you could have climbed that wall fast enough to get onto the bird with Sai.” Gaara said.

“But then you would have fallen.” Lee’s frown deepened.

“I know,” Gaara whispered. “I just don’t want you risking your life for me. I’m not really worth that.”

In the firelight, Lee’s face softened out of its frown. “Yes, you are,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss Gaara’s forehead. “Now, please get some rest.”

“What about the Grass shinobi?” Gaara asked, struggling to sit up. 

“You do not need to worry,” Lee soothed him. “I am here. I will look after you.”

Gaara’s eyes fell shut.

* * * * *

He next woke up slung over Lee’s back. H let himself hang there, staring at the grass as it swished past under Lee’s feet, undulating and swirling nauseatingly.

“Awake again?” Lee asked, jogging him slightly.

“Yeah,” Gaara grumbled, pressing his aching head against Lee’s shoulder and wishing everything would stop spinning. 

“Kakashi-sensei calls it a chakra depletion hangover,” Lee said, his voice uncharacteristically soft so as not to further aggravate the painful pressure inside Gaara’s skull. “I have never experienced it, but sometimes Kakashi-sensei will come home from long missions and spend a day or two lying in Gai-sensei’s room in the dark. Gai-sensei gets very upset if we make loud noises in the apartment or do anything that might disturb him.”

“Mmff,” Gaara said by way of agreement.

“You can just hang out up there, I have got you,” Lee assured him. He yawned so widely that his jaw clicked. “But you might want to look at the valley so you can see what happened. I will have to turn westward as soon as I find a safe place to make the crossing.”

Gaara lifted his head up with considerable effort and took in the ruin of what had once been a peaceful river valley. They were walking on a jagged ledge above a flat expanse of mud. Trees, snapped like matchsticks, stuck up here and there out of the sludge, and the surface was littered with bits of debris. With a horrible sinking feeling, Gaara noticed broken glass, shingles, a stray kitchen chair, little things that suggested that the landslide had swept over inhabited areas. He pressed his face back into Lee’s shoulder and took deep breaths.

“It has gotten worse as I have gotten further downriver,” Lee told him. His voice had taken on a heavy tone that Gaara had never heard before and he yawned again. 

“Are we safe out in the open like this?” Gaara asked.

“Not really,” Lee replied, wincing slightly. “I have seen a few Grass shinobi since I started walking, but I have been forewarned and able to avoid them.” He let go of Gaara’s leg briefly to pat the front pocket of his vest.

“How long can our luck hold?” Gaara wondered. “We’re both weak and anyone could find us out here.”

“What choice do we have?” Lee asked. “We need to get to Suna and we are just as likely to be found if we stay in one place.”

Gaara found that he was too exhausted to even think about it any further so just closed his eyes and tucked his forehead into the crook of his neck. 

Lee walked on silently for hours, uncomplaining despite his obvious fatigue. He marched over the rolling hills and wide prairies of the Land of Rivers, following the sun’s path across the sky until it began to slip below the horizon. Finally he set Gaara down in the long grass on the leeward side of a hill and began casting about for supplies to build a fire.

Gaara breathed over his hands in an attempt to warm them and his breath turned to white clouds in the air. Without the warmth of Lee’s back, he found himself shivering so hard that his teeth chattered. He edged a little closer to where Lee was crouching, gently blowing on a few precious sparks in a tangle of dried grass. They sprang into tiny flames and Lee nestled the kindling into a larger tangle of twigs and brush he had gathered. Gaara chewed on a food pill, trying not to taste it.

“It’s a shame we don’t have more supplies with us. Even our cloaks were lost.”

“We will be fine,” Lee replied cheerfully, though his smile was weak, and to Gaara's eyes, seemed forced. “It’s not that far to Suna, and I know they will be looking for us.”

“You’ve got that right,” a gruff voice answered from the long grass. Gaara struggled to regain his feet, blood pounding in his ears.

Lee’s face lit up and he dove into the long grass screaming “PAAAKKUUN!!”

He straightened up again, laughing and squashing a small, disgruntled dog against his chest in a fierce hug. “I am delighted to see you, Pakkun!”

“Yeah kid, I get that,” the dog huffed, stubby legs windmilling as he struggled to escape. Gaara realized he had been holding his breath and let himself slump forward, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“Oh! I am being rude!” Lee cried. He hurried over to Gaara and held out the little dog as though offering it to him. “Gaara, this is Pakkun, Kakashi-sensei’s ninja hound. Pakkun, this is Gaara. He is the Kazekage, but also he is my most precious person.”

Just like that, Gaara felt warm all over. “Am I really?” 

“Of course!” Lee cried. He tucked the dog under his arm like a football and knelt down in front of Gaara. “Did you really not know that?”

Gaara shrugged. “I just never imagined. . .”

“Gaara,” Lee’s voice was a mixture of tenderness and exasperation as he leaned in, bandaged palm sliding over Gaara’s cheek. Gaara closed his eyes and reached for Lee’s vest.

Lee yelped and pulled back abruptly. “Pakkun! Why did you bite me?!”

“Look,” Pakkun growled. “It’s bad enough having to put up with Gai all the time these days. You two are going to save that until I’m gone. Front row seats to you two slobbering all over each other was definitely not part of my mission.”

“What is your mission?” Gaara wondered.

“First of all, to find you two,” Pakkun informed him. “And that was difficult enough with all that mud. If it hadn’t been for the sand egg, I might never have found the beginning of the trail.”

“Sand egg?” Gaara wondered.

“The sand that carried us through the flood,” Lee told him. “It cracked in two like a big egg when we washed up on dry land. I am still surprised that it held together that long.”

“Now that I have found you, I am supposed to deliver a message,” Pakkun went on. “Everyone made it out of the river safely.”

Lee and Gaara both breathed sighs of relief.

“Baki and Kakashi have led a few others back to scout the area. They’re looking for you as well,” Pakkun told them. “Team Kurenai met up with Neji’s squad. No other word from them yet though.”

“Should we wait here for the others?” Lee asked.

“No. Keep going towards Suna as quickly as you can. They’ll catch up to you if they can,” Pakkun instructed. “Lee, until backup arrives, you are in charge of the Kazekage’s safety.”

Lee nodded solemnly and saluted.

“I’m also supposed to give you this,” Pakkun trotted away into the tall grass and returned with a small parcel that he dropped at Lee’s feet. 

Lee knelt down and opened the parcel. In the failing light, Gaara saw two cloaks, a box of waterproof matches, a packet of food pills and other survival supplies. 

“Thank you, Pakkun!” Lee cried.

“That was about all I could carry,” the little dog shrugged. “I wish I could be of more help but I’ve got to head back and report your location and direction of travel.”

“I think we should be able to manage with this,” Lee said slowly, going over the supplies again. “What is this? It has Gaara’s name on it.” 

He brought Gaara a small envelope addressed to him in Temari’s neat script. He knew what was in it without opening it, but still tore the envelope apart and let its contents spill into his lap.

“Sand.” He could have cried. There had been so little left; just a scant handful in his pockets. He gathered up the new sand, formed it into a sphere and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “With this, I’ll be able to make more once we reach the desert. That was thoughtful of her.”

“Tell them we are on our way, Pakkun!” Lee declared. “We will be in Suna before they know it!” 

“Of course,” Pakkun said, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Lee laid out the supplies in a neat row beside the fire and then bundled one of the cloaks around Gaara’s shoulders. He grabbed Gaara’s hand and held the back of it against his cheek for a second.

“Cold,” he muttered, frowning deeply, and drew the second cloak around Gaara’s shoulders as well.

“What about you?” Gaara protested.

“I have hot blood,” Lee said, giving him a thumbs up. Gaara grabbed his hand and mimicked Lee’s gesture, pressing Lee’s fingers against his cheek. 

“Cold,” he said accusingly. He tore the second cloak off his shoulders and threw it around Lee.

“But-” Lee began to protest and was brought up short by Gaara’s hand pressed over his mouth.

“I’m the Kazekage,” Gaara reminded him, pouting just a tiny bit.

Lee grabbed his wrist and kissed his fingers as he pulled them away from his mouth. “You know, technically I am a Leaf ninja, so I do not actually have to do what the Kazekage says.”

“You will if you know what’s good for you,” Gaara threatened, pout becoming slightly more pronounced.

“Or you will do what?” Lee challenged, laughing.

Gaara thought for a moment. “I’ll tickle you again,” he decided.

“Yes, Lord Kazekage, sir!” Lee said, giggling as he saluted. “I will wear my cloak at all times, sir!”

“Stop it. Take this seriously,” Gaara admonished, trying to hide the fact that he was laughing as well. “I just don’t want you to be cold.”

“I know,” Lee said. “I cannot help it! We have just survived an ambush, a battle, a landslide and chakra exhaustion, and now you are threatening to tickle me if I do not wear my cloak.”

“Lee,” Gaara said, once their laughter died away. “Thank you for staying with me.”

“Of course!” Lee cried.

“No, I mean it,” Gaara continued. “I might have survived the fall and the landslide on my own but I wouldn’t have made it any further than that. I would have been alone in the wilderness without the strength to even stand up. But you stayed with me.”

Lee moved closer and cupped Gaara’s face in both hands, leaning in as though to kiss him. Instead, he rested his forehead against Gaara’s and closed his eyes.

“Gaara, listen to me carefully, please,” he said quietly. “I am  _ always  _ going to be there when you need me. In moments of crisis, I will  _ never  _ leave you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Gaara protested. “You live so far from me, if something like that happened while we were apart, you couldn’t get there in time. It’s just not humanly possible.”

“I will always find a way,” Lee promised. “Just watch me.”

Something in his voice stopped Gaara from arguing. “Okay. I believe you.” 

“You remember what I said before,” Lee went on. “About running to me when you are in trouble?”

“That is one of the ways that you’ll always know how I really feel,” Gaara said. “Without needing to be told.”

“Yes. Please allow me to stand by you always, no matter the danger, no matter the cost. Allow me to protect you with my own life.” Lee whispered. “That is part of how I tell you that I love you. That is how you will always know. To be sent away from you would hurt worse than anything an enemy ninja could ever do to me.”

A few tears slipped from beneath his eyelashes and fell into Gaara’s lap.

“Lee,” Gaara whispered, his voice raw. He could think of nothing adequate to say to tell Lee how he was feeling, so he kissed him instead, moving his lips against Lee’s with an urgency and desperation that still weren’t enough to calm the wave of wild emotion that always threatened to overwhelm him in moments like this.

Lee pulled away and opened his mouth as though to say something, then closed it and leaned in to kiss Gaara again, tenderly this time, his arms wrapping around Gaara’s waist to hold him tightly against his chest. His pulse raced under Gaara’s hands where they rested against the sides of his neck. 

Lee pulled away again. “You need to sleep. I can tell you are still exhausted.”

“Just one more,” Gaara gasped, and tugged Lee’s face back down to his for another kiss. When he finally, reluctantly, let go of Lee, he dragged one thumb gently along the bruisy shadows beneath Lee’s eye. 

“You need to sleep too.”

“Not yet. One more,” Lee murmured, pulling him close again. Gaara laughed against his mouth and sank into his arms.


	5. Bare Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter contains descriptions of injuries and scarring.

Gaara had fallen asleep blissfully within the shelter of Lee’s cloak, his head pillowed on Lee’s arm, his exhausted muscles soothed by the warm weight of the body tucked against his back. But he woke to an aching chill in his joints and a sinking, gnawing feeling that something was missing.

He sat up and looked around, shaking dew out of his hair. New fuel had been added to the fire, the supplies Pakkun had brought them were still lined up neatly. A landscape of rolling hills and undulating grass extended to a horizon still streaked pink by the sunrise. Gaara was alone.

“Lee?” Gaara whispered. The wind in the long grass whispered back faintly. There was no other sound.

“ _ Lee? _ ” He hissed, fighting down a rising panic. A tall, cloaked figure appeared over the crest of the hill.

“Good morning, Gaara!” Lee called, oblivious to Gaara’s pulse thundering in his temples. “How are you feeling today?”

“Where did you go?” Gaara demanded. 

“Just to look around a bit.” Lee shrugged. “Look! I found berries for our breakfast! They are a little frostbitten but still good!” He showed Gaara the berries, gathered in the hem of his cloak. “They are not really a nutritional replacement for food pills but they certainly taste better. He beamed at Gaara.

“I don’t like waking up and not knowing where you are,” Gaara finally said.

“Oh, Gaara,” Lee frowned. “I am so sorry. I did not want to wake you before I needed to.”

“I know,” Gaara nodded, pulling his knees up against his chest. 

Lee sat down beside him and passed him a handful of berries.

“After that mission when we fought your councilman’s assassin, I kept having the same nightmare,” Lee said slowly. “Every night after I returned to Konoha, I dreamed that your sand no longer obeyed you, that my arms and legs would not move and there was nothing I could do but lay helpless and watch as you were attacked. I woke up every morning in a panic. Neji told me I was shouting nonsense in my sleep. I was always so worried. I wanted to send you messages every morning to ask if you were okay, I wanted to run to you and make sure for myself that you were safe. I mentioned the nightmares to Gai-sensei and he told me that this was normal. That when you see someone you love in mortal danger it forces you to imagine, even if it is just for a split second, what your life would be like without them. He said to have nightmares like that and feel separation anxiety for a while is to be expected.”

“When did you stop having that nightmare?” Gaara asked.

“Talking to Gai-sensei about it helped,” Lee confided. “After that, I had the dreams less frequently. They are not gone altogether. Sometimes they are different. I dream that I am searching for you, knowing you are close by but I can never find you. Sometimes I dream that you disappear into the sand. You sift away through my fingers and there is nothing I can do to hold onto you. I imagine that now I will dream of the flood as well.”

“Is feeling this way just part of loving someone then?” Gaara wondered, picking at a loose thread on the hem of his cloak.

Lee sighed heavily. “I suppose when you are a shinobi it is.” Then he brightened again, popping a handful of berries into his mouth. “But I am still here and so are you! Are you feeling better today?”

“Yes,” Gaara said, reaching over to thread his fingers through Lee’s, still sticky from the berries. “Much better. I’ll walk today.”

“Great!” Lee shouted. “I knew you would bounce back in no time!”

“I don’t heal as quickly as I used to,” Gaara huffed.

Lee laughed. “You sound like a little old man.”

“I feel like a little old man,” Gaara grumbled, standing up and pulling Lee with him as he surreptitiously tried to stretch the ache from his legs.

Lee packed up their things and erased all traces of the campsite with practiced efficiency. They set out with the morning sun on their backs.

“We should cross into Wind Country this afternoon,” Gaara told him. “After that, the going will be rougher, it is not easy terrain. When we get close to Suna, it might be better for us to travel at night and avoid the sun.”

“Sounds good,” Lee said cheerfully, swinging their joined hands as they walked.

“How do you have this much energy?” Gaara griped.

“A hot blooded ninja like myself recovers from a fight like that with ease!” Lee declared with a glittering smile.

“Wait a minute!” Gaara cried. “How could I have forgotten?! You were hurt during the fight!”

“It was nothing.” Lee tried to brush it off.

“There was a shuriken, that is how we knew about the ambush. You couldn’t dodge because you were carrying that ridiculous coffin they make me travel around in. You were bleeding,” Gaara insisted.

“Oh! You mean this thing!” Lee laughed and leaned forward, pushing his hair away from his forehead so that Gaara could see a neat row of stitches just above his left eyebrow.

“You stitched it yourself?” Gaara asked incredulously.

“Of course!” Lee cried. “I have gotten very good at it. I do not think it will even leave much of a scar.”

“Oh,” Gaara said. He raised himself up on his toes to press a gentle kiss along the line of stitches.

“There!” Lee exclaimed, a faint blush rising on his cheeks. “Now it is all better.”

Gaara couldn’t help but smile at him. “How many injuries have you had that you can stitch a wound on your own face as well as a surgeon would.”

Lee snorted. “I lost count so long ago, I could not even guess.”

“Well then, how many bones have you broken?” Gaara wondered, hoping to get Lee talking in order to distract himself from the persistent, heavy ache in his legs.

“Do you mean how many of my bones have ever been broken, or how many individual fractures have I had in total?” Lee asked. “Those are different numbers.”

“Individual fractures,” Gaara clarified.

“It is impossible to tell. We gave up counting,” Lee told him, then snapped his mouth shut hurriedly.

Of course. The sand. The Gates. The Chunin exams. Bones smashed into a thousand tiny splinters. Gaara pushed those thoughts away.

“How many bones then?” Gaara asked.

“One hundred and twenty six,” Lee responded promptly.

“But that’s-”

“More than half the bones I have? Yeah, I know. Some of them I might never have even known about if Neji was not a human x-ray machine.” He laughed at his own joke. “Most of them barely hurt.”

“This really is not making me feel better,” Gaara scolded him. “Could you please try to be more careful?”

“Yes.” Lee stopped walking and turned to face him. “Now I will.”

“Thank you,” Gaara breathed.

The sun was directly overhead and becoming uncomfortably warm when they reached the last river crossing before Wind Country. They refilled their canteens and Lee took the opportunity to plunge into the river, fully dressed and whooping loudly at the cold. He splashed about while Gaara walked gingerly over the surface to the far bank, carrying Lee’s vest, tool pouch and cloak for him.

“I wish you would swim with me,” Lee called, floating on his back. He dunked himself under the surface and then came back up, blowing a fountain of water into the air like a porpoise and laughing. 

“Another time when I have more than just one pocketful of sand. I can’t afford to get it wet,” Gaara called back.

“Okay fine,” Lee agreed, climbing up the bank. “I can teach you how to swim when you are ready.”

“That’s a date then,” Gaara agreed.

Lee grinned and gave him a thumbs up, then retreated to a respectful distance and shook himself like a dog, water spraying in wide arcs from the ends of his hair. Gaara tried very hard not to notice how his wet clothing clung to his body, revealing the contours of battle hardened muscles, the hollow of his navel. They continued walking.

The border between the Land of Rivers and Wind Country was marked here by a steep drop, where a broad, windswept plateau fell away to a desert valley. Neither Gaara nor Lee had traveled this particular route before, far from the road most shinobi used, and so they had to pick their way down the steep face of the cliff. It was nearly vertical near the top and then tapered to a gentler, but still formidable slope below. To fall from such a height, even with a healthy, well rested supply of chakra, would be catastrophic. 

Any other day, Gaara could have disappeared from the clifftop and reappeared in a swirl of sand below. If he had felt like showing off, he could have made a platform of sand for the pair of them and drifted down to the valley floor. But with his sand lost to the flood and his chakra severely weakened, he had no choice but to climb down one slow, agonizing step at a time. Gaara knew that Lee probably could have made the descent in a matter of minutes on his own, but he inched down the rock face slowly, a few steps below Gaara, ever watchful. Every time Gaara got stuck, Lee’s hand would find his ankle and guide it to a safe foothold. 

It took them the better part of the afternoon to finally reach the bottom. Gaara let himself sink to the ground and lay looking up at the familiar desert sky, breathing heavily, arms and legs trembling with effort, fingers and toes scraped raw. 

“You really had not recovered enough to do that,” Lee said, laying down beside him.

“I guess not,” Gaara agreed ruefully. “It’s been years but I’m still learning where the limits of my own chakra are without Shukaku.”

“We will rest here for a bit,” Lee decided. “We can continue our journey at nightfall like you said.”

* * * * *

They began walking again as the sun was setting, bundling their cloaks about them as the temperature plummeted. At night, the desert was a dreamscape of flowering cacti and whispering sand. Small creatures with shining eyes and giant ears watched them from the shadows, scorpions scuttled away as they approached. Overhead the sky was a glittering blanket of endless stars. Lee craned his head back, jaw slack with amazement. 

Gaara took a small handful of the new sand Temari had sent him and dropped it onto the ground. It burrowed along underneath his feet as he walked, collecting more sand and grinding it down to just the right texture. When he was strong enough, he would be able to infuse it with his chakra to form his Ultimate Defense. For now, it was enough to know that it was there.

By the time they stopped to rest, he had enough to form a small gourd which he hung from his belt. It would not yet work the way it was supposed to, but it was a start.

“Gaara of the Desert,” Lee said thoughtfully, watching him shape the coarse desert sand into a shelter for them to pass the day in. “You seem stronger since we got here. You look like you belong here.”

“I do,” Gaara agreed. “I am in my element, as they say. What about you? Do you feel stronger among the trees of Fire Country?”

“I am not sure,” Lee said, as he brought their supplies inside the sand shelter. “I do not think I have ever felt that I belong anywhere in particular.”

“I would like you to belong somewhere,” Gaara said softly, as he sealed the sand shut against the rays of the rising sun.

“What do you mean?” Lee asked.

“I’d like you to belong with me,” Gaara confessed, moving closer to him in the darkness.

“Oh,” Lee breathed. “I think I would like that too.” 

He closed the distance between them, sliding their lips together, a little clumsy with no light to see by. Gaara sighed in relief and scrambled closer, crowding into Lee’s lap again. All night, as they had walked, they had traded brief, chaste kisses, each one sending a small thrill through his chest and leaving him wanting something more. Lee’s tongue traced along the inside of his upper lip and when Gaara’s tongue met his Lee made a sharp gasping sound. Gaara bit down on his lower lip gently, experimentally, and shivered happily when Lee made the same sound again. One of Lee’s hands was pressing insistently at the small of his back, holding them chest to chest, while the other was wrapped around the back of Gaara’s neck, thumb splayed out under his jaw to tilt his head back at just the right angle. His own hands roved through Lee’s hair, down his spine, across his chest, touching anywhere he could reach, seeking the warmth of skin. The desperation he felt for more of this, more of Lee, almost scared him, but not nearly enough to stop. 

Lee’s lips left his mouth and he made a sound of protest, but Lee trailed kisses along his jaw, and began to lick along the shell of his ear. Heat flooded through Gaara’s body and he writhed in Lee’s arms, vaguely aware that his breathing had grown loud and shallow. Lee kissed and nibbled his way down the side of Gaara’s neck, and made a small sound of frustration when Gaara’s high, stiff collar kept springing back to thwart his progress. Without thinking, Gaara raised impatient fingers to the front of his jacket and began undoing the buttons. Lee pushed the fabric aside hurriedly and continued pressing open mouthed kisses against Gaara’s throat. He closed his lips over the sensitive skin where Gaara’s neck met his shoulder and sucked gently there. Gaara whimpered and tangled his fingers in Lee’s hair. Lee’s teeth scraped over his heated skin and Gaara cried out, struggling to press himself as close to Lee as possible. Gaara barely had time to register how sublime that had felt before Lee moved.

Gaara found himself sprawled on his back, Lee’s weight pressing him down into the sand, Lee’s mouth moving against his with a hunger and abandon unlike anything Gaara had experienced. He wanted more.

Gaara tugged at the green jumpsuit and vest in frustration. The fabric was thick and sturdy and covered Lee from ankle to wrist to throat. Gaara caught ahold of one of Lee’s wrists and tugged the knot free from the bandages. He began unwinding it, already anticipating the way Lee’s bare hand would feel against his skin. Lee made a muffled sound of surprise, and snatched his hand back, rolling away from Gaara and darting backwards across the floor of the shelter, panting as though he’d been running.

Gaara reached out towards him but didn’t dare try to close the distance, icy horror congealing in his stomach. “I’m so sorry! Lee!”

“No, it is okay,” Lee whispered, still breathing heavily. “You did not do anything wrong.”

“Then why-”

“It is my hands,” Lee choked out, anguish plain in his voice.

“What about your hands?” 

“They are. . .” He heard Lee swallow hard. “They are ruined.”

“What do you mean by ruined?” Gaara asked, his heart in his throat.

“I will show you if you want,” Lee offered in a quavering voice. “But please just. . . Gai-sensei says I am much too self-conscious about them.”

“Only if you really want to,” Gaara whispered.

“Okay,” Lee said, more resolute now. “Let me find a light.”

“Here,” Gaara made a small window in the wall of the sand shelter so that the sunlight could filter through indirectly, bright without burning. He watched in anxious silence as Lee slowly began to unwind the tape which covered his hands. He had already known that Lee’s fingers were scarred and calloused, a few a little crooked. He imagined that whatever was underneath the bandaging wouldn’t be much worse.

The right hand fell bare first, revealing a few crooked knuckles and a patchwork of bruises, fresh ones overlaying half healed ones. A thick scar ran along the back of his thumb. Another crossed his palm and disappeared into his sleeve. Gaara watched his scarred right hand unravel the bandages on the left hand. Lee held both hands out in front of him, eyes closed. Gaara moved closer and gently gathered both hands into his lap to inspect them, turning them this way and that. The left hand made the right seem almost unblemished by comparison. It was criss-crossed with dozens of scars, some accidental, some decidedly surgical in appearance. The first two knuckles were a knobbled mess of scar tissue and sat at unnatural angles. A massive, yellowed bruise bloomed across the heel of his hand. Covering the back of his hand, around his wrist and disappearing up into his sleeve was a mass of scars Gaara knew quite well. He knew them because Yashamaru had had one just like it, as did Temari and Kankuro, though both of theirs had been much smaller and were nearly faded now. It was a scar that everyone bore if they had been close to him when he was a small child trying to learn how to keep the sand from acting on his every emotion, or if they had dared to cross him when he was less a boy than beast, hungering for some reason to remain alive.

No matter what Lee said about not allowing the past to hang over their heads, he hated that Lee also bore these scars. He hated that Lee had been made so ashamed of his hands that he felt the need to hide them. Hatred this strong had been a stranger to him for quite some time, but there was something else there too. Something new.

He pressed his lips against Lee's scarred left wrist. “I can’t kiss that one better,” he said heavily.

“You do not need to,” Lee whispered, tears splashing silently down his face. “That one was better the moment a cushion of sand broke my fall and carried me safely away from Kimimaro.”

“I’m not sure old wounds heal so easily,” Gaara whispered, and kissed Lee’s scarred knuckles. Lee’s tears began to flow faster.

“I love your hands,” Gaara decided, and was surprised it was so easy to say. “Your dream has always been to become a splendid ninja and prove to the world that you could do so without using ninjutsu or genjutsu. You have done that a hundred times over and your hands bear witness to how hard you have worked to get there. Your hands tell me I can trust you to follow through on your word, to never give up. Everything that makes you special is written in the scars on your hands.” It all came out in a rush, and Lee stared at Gaara in bewilderment, blinking tears from his eyes.

“You really think that?” Lee whispered.

“I do,” Gaara said firmly. He raised Lee’s battered left hand and kissed each crooked knuckle, each scar, each bruise and callous, then started on the right one. Lee watched him with an expression similar to the one he had worn when he had looked up at the night sky as they walked, tears still streaming down his face.

"I'm so lucky to be in love with you," Lee whispered. Gaara couldn't answer him so he raised Lee's bare hands, pressed them to either side of his face and closed his eyes.


	6. Unwind

Midway through their second night travelling in the desert of Wind Country, their conversation was interrupted by a long howl. 

"That's no night creature," Gaara said. "That's a dog."

Lee strained his ears and when he heard barking his face split into a wide grin. 

"I know that voice," he told Gaara. “That is Akamaru!”

“Kiba’s hound?” Gaara wondered. “All the way out here?”

Their eyes met and they watched the realization on each others’ faces quickly give way to giddy relief. They broke into a run, supporting each other by their joined hands, until their lungs grew sore from the effort and their aching limbs threatened to give out. Four figures came into view in the distance, silhouetted against the rising moon. Temari strode along with her fan on her back, Kankuro laden with scrolls, and Kiba walked next to Akamaru who was pulling a sled on wide runners that rode smoothly over the sand. 

The moment their friends caught sight of them they came sprinting across the dunes, their shouts mixed with Akamaru’s frantic barking. Soon Lee and Gaara were engulfed in welcoming arms and exclamations of joy. Gaara turned away from Kankuro who was ruffling his hair and teasing him about sand baths, and found that Temari had thrown both arms around Lee and seemed to be trying to squeeze the life out of him. Kiba was standing nearby looking apprehensive and uncomfortable.

“I saw what you did,” Temari was saying. “I saw you standing by him as the rest of us flew away, I saw you catch him when he fell. Pakkun told us that you carried him for nearly seventy kilometres when he was too chakra depleted to walk.”

“How did Pakkun even know that?” Lee wondered, patting Temari’s back in bemusement. His voice came out breathless from their run and Temari’s tight grip around his ribs. “He found us after we had stopped for the night.”

“He said there was only one set of tracks from the first campsite to the second,” Temari explained. “Yours. Thank you, Lee.”

Gaara ducked out of Kankuro’s grasp and came to stand next to them with his arms folded over his chest. He glared at his sister as he spoke. “He stitched his own wound so I wouldn’t need to worry about it. He made sure I had food and water, that I was warm and comfortable, even if it meant he wouldn’t be. When I was worried he reassured me. He caught me every time I so much as stumbled. That’s what Lee does, that’s who he is. Do you finally see that now? Or are you still going to insist on wedging yourself between us at every chance?”

“I’ve always known that Lee was like that,” Temari said indignantly. 

“Then why have you been behaving like such a -” Gaara cut himself off and exhaled hard from his nose. “Why have you been acting like he’ll slip a knife in my back if you’re not there watching him?”

To his horror, Temari began to cry. His stoic, ruthless sister sat down in the sand at his feet and wept like a child.

“I couldn’t protect you when they sealed that  _ thing  _ in your soul,” she explained through her tears. “I know I was three years old and didn’t know what was happening, but I still feel like I should have looked after you better. Then Mom was dead and there was no one . . . I couldn’t save you from Father, or the assassins. I couldn’t save you from yourself when you were out of control.” She broke off in a sob.

“Is that what it is?” Gaara demanded. “You’re trying to save me from Lee?”

“No!” Temari insisted, wiping her tears away angrily. “It has nothing to do with Lee. I just worry about you getting hurt and I feel like for once I can actually do what a big sister is supposed to do and I can protect you, I can look after you.”

Kankuro and Kiba had drawn Lee away some distance, both looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“I’m an adult,” Gaara protested, though he lowered himself to kneel in the sand beside her. “I don’t need you to act as a chaperone for me.” He paused and took a deep breath. “If you really want to support me, get to know Lee better. Spend time with him, let me talk to you about how I feel about him. I know none of us are really good at this, but maybe try to show you care about me through something other than distrust and aggression.” 

Temari turned to stare at Gaara for a long moment.

“Okay,” she said finally, then much quieter. “I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Gaara said. Temari launched herself forward and hugged him fiercely. 

“Well, this has been a suitably tense family reunion,” Kankuro said. “Can we go the hell home already?”

“Yes!” Lee agreed. “I am ready for a shower and a proper bed! And I need to catch up on my training!”

“Oh no,” Kiba interrupted him. “We’re under strict orders from the medical staff. When we find you, you go in the sled. From the sled, you go to the hospital.”

Lee began to protest, but Gaara strode over, grabbed him by the shoulders and steered him into the sled. He climbed in after and immediately curled into an exhausted ball on the floor. Akamaru began trotting westward with Kiba jogging alongside him.

“Your chakra still has not recovered,” Lee worried, reaching out to stroke Gaara’s dusty hair away from his face.

“It hasn’t had a chance,” Gaara assured him. “I’ll be fine with some proper rest.”

“But you have slept so much!” Lee cried. 

“More than usual, yes,” Gaara agreed. “But not enough to cure a case of chakra depletion, and we have been living on nothing but food pills.”

Temari and Lee exchanged concerned looks, and Gaara felt something warm unfurling in his chest.

Moving at the pace of three healthy shinobi and a ninja hound, they reached Suna much more quickly than Lee and Gaara could have hoped to at their own weary pace. Kiba, good to his word, did tow them, sled and all, directly into the hospital. The head medical ninja quickly diagnosed Gaara with a severe case of chakra depletion, made worse by physical exhaustion, and dehydration. He gave Lee’s neat row of stitches an approving nod and a swipe of antiseptic, and diagnosed him with exhaustion, dehydration and a slightly torn muscle in his left shoulder. They were both prescribed bed rest and kept under hospital surveillance.

“You never told me you hurt your shoulder,” Gaara hissed when they were alone again. 

“It was nothing,” Lee said. “When I caught you as you fell off the wall, it kind of twinged a bit, but I did not think it was so bad.”

Gaara shook his head. “That’s not okay, Lee. You know I appreciate everything you did to keep us both safe, but you should not hide your injuries. You shouldn’t lie to me to.”

“I did not want you to worry,” Lee said in a small voice.

“Well, I’m worried  _ now, _ ” Gaara pointed out. “And on top of that, I feel guilty. Please don’t do that again.”

“Okay,” Lee whispered. “I am sorry. It is not for me to decide what you need to know.”

“No, it’s not,” Gaara agreed. He reached out across the space between their cots and Lee took his hand. His palm was rough and unbandaged, and Gaara held on tightly. 

“I suppose we’re safe now,” Gaara finally said.

Lee’s head moved against his pillows in a slow nod.

“But what now?” Gaara wondered. “Why did all this happen? Is it over?”

“I do not know. Remember, Pakkun said Neji and the others -” He sat bolt upright, eyes wide. “Neji! I need to find out if he is alright!”

Gaara tugged on Lee’s arm to prevent him from leaping out of bed. “Temari would have told us if anything had happened.”

“But what if -?”

“She has never been one for tact, and certainly wouldn’t try to spare your feelings.” Gaara rolled his eyes and then dropped his head wearily back onto his pillow. He stroked Lee’s knuckles with his thumb until he felt him settle back down. “You need to rest a bit, Lee. When they give us clearance to leave, we’ll go find Neji and Tenten.”

* * * * *

Kakashi and Shikamaru breezed into the hospital room without knocking and pulled up short. Two black clouds seemed to be hanging over the beds and there was an air of danger in the room.

“Kankuro stole my gourd,” Gaara growled by way of greeting. “He said that trying to infuse my sand with chakra now would be a ‘setback to my recovery.’”

“Tenten caught me doing leg lifts and took my weights away,” Lee complained.

“Well, it’s a good thing I brought these,” Kakashi sighed, dumping an armload of books into a chair.

“Not your usual choices,” Lee remarked, looking at the titles. 

“Temari wouldn’t let me, sorry.” Kakashi smiled down at him. “These are just what I found in Baki’s collection. Honestly, you two. You’ve been on bed rest for all of three hours and you’re already restless and irritable.”

“How can we not be restless?” Gaara demanded. “We were ambushed and we still don’t know why. I need to know what’s happening.”

“Good thing I came to do the briefing then,” Shikamaru remarked. He pulled up a chair next to Gaara’s cot. “Neji and his squad just got back. He did everything he could, but the Kusakage got away. That’s the bad news. But, we were able to capture a couple of his guards, and Ibiki’s got them singing like birds now. We recovered a few enemy corpses from the wreckage as well. From what we’ve pieced together so far, your old councilman, Kiyomori, originally approached Kusagakure for help a few years ago while he was still planning his coup from underground. He promised their leader all kinds of things, including the right to bear the title Kage, if he would help him overthrow you.”

“And that’s where he fled to when you routed him from the village,” Kakashi added. “He’s been continuing his work from there.”

“He’s rallied a few rogue ninjas with promises that they will be welcomed back to the village if they help him, and we’re told he’s still got a few agents inside the village working against you,” Shikamaru went on.

“We’ve caught one already,” Kakashi added. “One of your ANBU guards.”

“Which one?” Gaara demanded. 

“The one they called Samoon,” Kakashi told him. “He was tough, but no match for Gai.”

“Give Gai my thanks,” Gaara said, smiling at the way Kakashi tried to act so casual while visibly beaming with pride.

“Problem is,” Shikamaru went on, the faintest hint of hesitation in his voice. “This is shaping up to be an even bigger mess than it looks like. Kiyomori’s goal may be to overthrow you, but his allies. . . it looks like they’re hoping that once you fall there will be a dissolution of the existing alliances, an opportunity to seize power. We don’t know yet what to expect, but we’re preparing for something big.”

“So! What is our next move?” Lee asked, leaping up.

“ _ Your  _ next move is to cool it,” Kakashi insisted, prodding Lee back into bed. “We’re trying to ferret out some of the others that are still within the village . . . quite literally in Temari’s case.”

Shikamaru snorted and shook his head. “We’re hoping to keep this quiet and fight them in the shadows as long as we can. The rest of Team Kakashi and a few other Leaf shinobi are on their way here. We’re going to plot the next move from there. You two should be up and about by then.”

“Very well,” Gaara said, folding his hands in his lap. “In that case, Shikamaru, I’ll need you to bring me some things from my office.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Kakashi shook his head. “Bed rest means no working. Your brother and sister have it all covered.”

Gaara glared at him.

“Come on, Shikamaru,” Kakashi ushered him out the door. “We have places to be. As for you two, I’m sure you’ll find some way to entertain yourselves.” He winked at them as he shut the door behind him.

“You know,” Gaara said after a long silence. “We  _ are _ alone in here.”

Lee was out of bed in an instant, laughing that bright laugh that made Gaara’s heart stutter uncontrollably. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can find me on [tumblr](https://lilac-writes.tumblr.com/), and are always welcome to drop by and say hello.


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